Special section: The Gardner Grows

A look at the expanded Gardner museum

The $114 million steel, glass, and copper-clad addition to Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum includes a new music hall, gallery space, and other amenities for an institution that has remained largely unaltered since opening in 1903.

New entrance

Visitors will enter through a front door on Evans Way into a first floor of glass and light with views of the gardens, greenhouses and original museum.

Living Room

Inspired by a project of artist-in-residence Lee Mingwei in 2000, this space will have a domestic aesthetic that echoes the essence of Isabella Stewart Gardner's palazzo, where personal and public spaces blended.Area: 1,100 square feet

Special Exhibition Gallery

This soaring place includes an antegallery for light-sensitive objects. A movable translucent ceiling can be positioned to fit the size of specific art exhibits.Main gallery area: 1,500 square feet; antegallery: 500 square feet

Two apartments above the greenhouses, with a sloping glass façade, will be available for artists-in-residence. Area: 600 square feet per apartment

Visitors will enter through a front door on Evans Way into a first floor of glass and light with views of the gardens, greenhouses and original museum.

Inspired by a project of artist-in-residence Lee Mingwei in 2000, this space will have a domestic aesthetic that echoes the essence of Isabella Stewart Gardner's palazzo, where personal and public spaces blended. Area: 1,100 square feet

This soaring place includes an antegallery for light-sensitive objects. A movable translucent ceiling can be positioned to fit the size of specific art exhibits. Main gallery area: 1,500 square feet; antegallery: 500 square feet

Visitors will walk through an enclosed, transparent corridor shaded by a grove of trees to get from the new wing to the palace.

The new concert space has about 300 seats: two rows at floor level, and single rows in each of three balconies, all surrounding a central stage. Area: 6,000 square feet

The Gardner cafe will reopen in a larger indoor and outdoor space with seating for about 120 people and an enhanced kitchen. Area: 1,800 square feet

In a project inspired by artist Lee Mingwei, about three times a week, guest hosts will bring in three to five objects from their own homes to facilitate discussion with interested museumgoers.
By Anna Marden

A gala concert offered a select group a first look at, and a first listen to, Calderwood Hall, the elegant and smartly designed 296-seat venue that will be the epicenter of the Gardner’s musical activities.
By David Weininger